My Introduction to SemioBytes

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Terry Rankin and I are co-hosts for an exciting (well at least to us) podblog experiment.

The pod is the podcast, SemioBytes, which features the both of us, head-to-head, toe-to-toe, looking at things from his Christian and my (Orthodox) Jewish point of view. It’ll be interesting to say the least.

The blog component is our individual blog posts, like this one, to follow up with more depth. Only so much can be found in a ten minute episode, and with the layers of depth that semiotics is, we couldn’t just leave everyone hanging…

Below you will find an embed of the initial episode aired on Anchor and following it my response to the initial episode. I encourage you to subscribe to the blogs and podcast individually or sign up for emails to your inbox. Also, click here to learn more about this project and how you can contribute ideas (as well as be a guest speaker).

I hold a Masters of Divinity as well as a Bachelor of Science in Religion with a triple-minor in biblical studies, Christian counseling, and psychology from Liberty University. I left Christianity to convert to Orthodox Judaism around January/February of 2017 as the result of my studies in my program. Since then I have been living as an observant Orthodox Jewish individual within an Orthodox community. My dissertation focuses on Jewish-Christian relations and our similarities and differences.

I first came across semiotics in my associate studies at community college. Back then, all I knew was “the study of signs.” Ah, the innocence and simplicity…nowadays it’s anything but simple as I work on finishing my Doctorate. My exposure was a research writing course by Dr. Terry Krueger while working on my Associate of Arts degree at Central Oregon Community College. At the time, semiotics was simply called “a study of signs” and we interpreted the messaging of commercials and the Disney experience. When I think of semiotics now, however, it’s a bit deeper and more personal. I think mainly of the PaRDeS concept. This isn’t a new perspective, either. Dr. Sweet does a great job summarizing his viewpoint in “Giving Blood” to connect the two. Kabbalistically, it means every word of Torah has four views and infinite meaning and purpose. When we read Torah, it can apply to our lives today by interpreting the text and signs signified. That’s about as deep as I can go on that now, since it really deserves it’s own post and episode. I did write about this recently on YidBrik, however.

What are your thoughts? Where can we make bridges? What areas seem unlikely? 

Questions about religion, semiotics, Judaism, or Christianity? Maybe all of the above?

Ask the SemioBytes podcast today!

PS – this connects to the dissertation artifact for both Terry L. Rankin and myself, so we really would appreciate your questions!